Rape law reform lays bare political morass

The 24-year-old Pakistani woman has medical reports saying she's been raped. What she hasn't got is four male witnesses that the country's Islamic law says she needs to prove it.

"Rapists don't bring four witnesses to watch," the university graduate said in a quavering voice as she lay in a hospital where she has been treated for the past week for swelling, inflammation and other

injuries. If she filed a rape case and lost, she could be tried and jailed for adultery under a set of Islamic laws introduced in 1979 by then military dictator Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq.

Proposed bill

Just days before the young woman was raped by two men from a gang that abducted her, parliament embarked on a tortuous debate over a bill that proposed putting the crime of rape under the civil criminal code and removing it from the Hudood Ordinances, as Pakistan's parallel Islamic laws are known. Under the civil code, a victim would only need the medical reports and other evidence to prove rape.

The issue highlights a long struggle between progressive and religious conservative forces to set the future course of this turbulent Muslim nation of over 150 million people.

Common sense

The bill is the result of lobbying by activists rather than any popular campaign, but it does have widespread support among a public that recognises the injustice of the Hudood law on rape."Common sense doesn't accept it, so I'm sure it won't be in Islam and the Koran," said Beenish Mazhar, a housewife from the northwestern city of Peshawar.

The bill is backed by President Pervez Musharraf, a general who came to power in a coup seven years ago, but sees himself on the side of the progressives.

His problem is that in holding onto power he has sidelined the mainstream parties, who represent the constituencies who share his vision for Pakistan, and given Islamist parties who oppose any change in the Hudood laws more leverage.

Because the scales are loaded against the victim, most rapes go unreported. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the media published reports on 55 cases of rape and 38 of gang rape in the first six months of the year.

The horrific nature of some has helped raise awareness among Pakistanis. The university graduate's story is the latest to stir consciences.

She was abducted along with her mother on August 25 from their home in the small town of Kabirwala in central Punjab province by a dozen men she says were wearing police uniforms.

While her mother was beaten, the woman says she was raped by two men. Dr. Saima Ahsan said the violence inflicted on her was obvious when she was admitted to hospital weeks later.

Though police caught the perpetrators just days after the abduction, only kidnapping charges have been brought. Non-government organisations that have taken up the case say the alleged rapists have friends in government.NGOs have written to Musharraf asking for his help.

Sincerity questioned

When the Women's Protection Bill was first aired last month, rights groups applauded it as a good first step to rolling back the Hudood laws, even though it was later decided that adultery should remain punishable with imprisonment after a compromise with Islamists. But the handling of the bill so far has been farcical, local newspapers said.

The Pakistan Muslim League (PML), which leads the ruling coalition, almost agreed to a further compromise with Islamists that would have hamstrung the reform by keeping rape laws under both penal codes.

A more secular-minded coalition partner stopped the pact, and the government is now waiting for Musharraf to return from a visit to the United States at the end of September to sort out the mess. William Milam, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, outlined the conundrum faced by Musharraf if he is sincere in promoting progressive values.

"It is time in fact, past time for the president to choose to make that vision his only objective and to eschew completely the tactical behaviour he is told is necessary to maintain himself and the army in power," Milam wrote in an article in a local newspaper.

(Reuters)